After nearly a quarter century at the helm, longtime Kentucky Wildcats athletics director Mitch Barnhart will retire from his current position in June and accept a new role at the school, UK announced Tuesday. 

Barnhart will finish out the fiscal year that ends on June 30. UK president Dr. Eli Capilouto called the announcement a "profound mix of emotions."

Barnhart gets a cake job for 4 years at an annual salary of 950 k and a 600k retention bonus.  I think overall Barnhart has been a good AD and a solid ambassador for UK athletics.  The cush job with a hefty paycheck on his way out, rubs me the wrong way!

It will be interesting to see who they hire as the next AD. They obviously have some internal hires they could make. However, I would like to see them go outside with someone that may have previous ties to the program, but also now has actual AD experience too. 

Here are three guys I like that was listed in the article below. 

Martin Newton- Athletic Director at Samford. He is the son of former A.D. CM Newton. He has made some good hires at Samford that has seen programs have success. He was also here under Barnhardt for a few years. He is also the one who hired Texas A&M current coach straight out of coaching high school. He led Samford to the NCAA tournament before getting the Texas A&M job this year. 

DeWayne Peevy- Athletic Director at Depaul. He was here under Barnhardt as well, and also worked closely with the basketball program during his time here. 

Rob Mullens- Athletic Director at Oregon. He worked here under Barnhardt, and obviously has had a lot of success with the Oregon sport programs. With that said probably small chance he leaves Oregon and that Nike money, unless he is tired of living out West. 

https://www.on3.com/teams/kentucky-wildcats/news/kentucky-athletics-director-hot-board-mitch-barnhart-candidates/

 

 

3 hours ago, okie1 said:

Barnhart gets a cake job for 4 years at an annual salary of 950 k and a 600k retention bonus.  I think overall Barnhart has been a good AD and a solid ambassador for UK athletics.  The cush job with a hefty paycheck on his way out, rubs me the wrong way!

CM Newton retired with the football team facing NCAA investigation and probation, he was given a home in the Caribbean as a going away present. I'm ok with Mitch's retirement package, I think overall he's done an excellent job.

There have been missteps of course, but the growth of the total athletics program under his leadership has been strong.

He had a couple of bad hires, Billy, Kyra, Joker. He was slow in coming around (in some peoples minds) to alcohol sales and the JMI deal while lucrative for UK, leaves a few things to desire.

On the huge plus side there are several new or upgraded facilities  to include a New Baseball field, softball complex, soccer complex, indoor and outdoor track complex, football practice facilities, basketball dorm (men) and new practice facilities (both), total remodel of Memorial to go along with hirings of Rich Brooks, Stoops, Cal, Mingione, Lawson, Mitchell, Kenny Brooks, Skinner as well as high level coaches in track, tennis, gymnastics and other sports.

Mitch deserves a lot of credit for taking UK athletics to another level through the drastic improvement in facilities, taking UK football to a level that I, and I think many others, never thought possible, and making programs within the department that were traditionally irrelevant, relevant.

It is also fair to highlight some choices/circumstances that happened on Mitch's watch that he did not get nearly enough criticism for, IMO. This includes the absolutely absurd contracts he gave to both Calipari and Stoops. Mitch was so fortunate to get bailed out by Tyson Foods/Arkansas, who made Cal a perfect offer at the perfect time, and Stoops, who was willing to take his buyout over numerous years rather than pay him in the 60 days UK was contractually obligated to. I am not sure how anyone can defend those two contracts. Secondly, the JMI contract has been a cluster and a hindrance every step of the way. He simply handed over all control to an entity that, by the nature of its business, does not have to put UK Athletics' interests at the forefront of its decision-making. Finally, the potentially criminal issues with the swim/dive programs and cheerleading programs have been mostly swept under the rug, to Mitch's benefit. 

Taking all of that into account, I still think Mitch's tenure was overall positive and wish him the best in his retirement, but the cushy gig that amounts to essentially a job recruiter seems ridiculous to me, especially when UK announced budget cuts just this past month, and Barnhart made north of $25 million over the course of his career at UK. I can't blame him, though. You don't say no to that kind of deal. I blame the board of trustees that signed off on the deal. 

1 hour ago, AC Slater said:

Mitch deserves a lot of credit for taking UK athletics to another level through the drastic improvement in facilities, taking UK football to a level that I, and I think many others, never thought possible, and making programs within the department that were traditionally irrelevant, relevant.

It is also fair to highlight some choices/circumstances that happened on Mitch's watch that he did not get nearly enough criticism for, IMO. This includes the absolutely absurd contracts he gave to both Calipari and Stoops. Mitch was so fortunate to get bailed out by Tyson Foods/Arkansas, who made Cal a perfect offer at the perfect time, and Stoops, who was willing to take his buyout over numerous years rather than pay him in the 60 days UK was contractually obligated to. I am not sure how anyone can defend those two contracts. Secondly, the JMI contract has been a cluster and a hindrance every step of the way. He simply handed over all control to an entity that, by the nature of its business, does not have to put UK Athletics' interests at the forefront of its decision-making. Finally, the potentially criminal issues with the swim/dive programs and cheerleading programs have been mostly swept under the rug, to Mitch's benefit. 

Taking all of that into account, I still think Mitch's tenure was overall positive and wish him the best in his retirement, but the cushy gig that amounts to essentially a job recruiter seems ridiculous to me, especially when UK announced budget cuts just this past month, and Barnhart made north of $25 million over the course of his career at UK. I can't blame him, though. You don't say no to that kind of deal. I blame the board of trustees that signed off on the deal. 

Looking at how it played out, yes the Calipari contract ended up being a bad contract. With that said at that moment when they gave Calipari the contract, it was what needed to happen to keep him. UCLA was going after Calipari hard and offered over 10 million a year to go there. If Mitch didn't offer the type of deal he did and Calipari left, people would have went nuts for not making sure they kept Cal here. Things at that time were not bad and still doing really well under Calipari, and had a great group the next year that possibly could have won it all if the tournament didn't get cancelled. 

Now obviously though everything changed from that moment the tournament was cancelled and Calipari never got UK going again to the same level he was doing before Covid. However, at that time when UK offered him that contract, you had to do that if you were Mitch. You couldn't let Cal leave at that time, because at that time UK and Calipari were still doing big things. 

With that said and even Calipari acknowledged it, he should have left for the UCLA job that year. 

Today was officially the last day for Mitch Barnhart as Kentucky's AD.